


Double Exposure

by Scourge of Nemo (Disguise_of_Carnivorism)



Series: The Consequences of Being Seen [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Bounty Hunter Reality TV Stars, Idiots in Love, M/M, Rival Bounty Hunters, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 00:01:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29410209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Disguise_of_Carnivorism/pseuds/Scourge%20of%20Nemo
Summary: Assassin-turned-camerawoman Fennec Shand starts collecting b-roll of Boba Fett going soft-eyed for a certain Mandalorian bounty hunter. She has to wonder if Boba realizes exactlyhow muchtime he spends gazing at the guy, even while the cam droids are rolling.
Relationships: Boba Fett & Fennec Shand, Din Djarin/Boba Fett
Series: The Consequences of Being Seen [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2160531
Comments: 30
Kudos: 239





	Double Exposure

**Author's Note:**

> This is an entirely self-indulgent Fennec POV addition to my [ongoing BobaDin AU](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28825062), in which Din & Boba are both HoloNet bounty hunter personalities (of disparate degrees of fame). This is... not, strictly speaking, canon for that universe.
> 
> You do not have to read that to understand this. The important background is just "rival bounty hunters who film their exploits and post them on the HoloNet." However, if you're reading that, there's some spoilers about the general direction Boba and Din's relationship takes. (None of these specific scenes will show up there, though.)
> 
> s/o to the server for a quite few of the mini-scene ideas in here <3
> 
> Happy Valentine's Day!

Fennec doesn’t know quite how to bring it up.

“There something you want to tell me?” she asks Boba, the first time she notices it. 

He raises an eyebrow at her and sets down the blaster he’s been cleaning. “Probably not.”

“It’s just… we’ve been running into that Mandalorian _awfully_ frequently.” She can’t keep herself from pushing, just a little. She _knows_ she shouldn’t stick her nose in, but… technically it _does_ affect her job. 

“What, you don’t like the guy?” Boba’s voice is deceptively light. Fennec knows not to trust it by now, after months of working with the bounty hunter. The lighter his tone, the more he cares. 

“He seems fine. He just keeps blocking my shots,” Fennec settles on, and keeps cutting her footage. There’s an awful, _awful_ lot that contains the Mandalorian in his pure, shiny beskar. He’s dynamic enough, but his instincts for positioning on multiple cameras are _bad_. You can really tell he’s a livestreamer with one basic cam droid to his name. “Seriously, can you tell buckethead to watch my line?”

Boba just grunts at her.

She has to wonder if Boba realizes exactly how much time he spends _gazing_ at the bounty hunter. 

* * *

After they run into the other Mandalorian on the job for the fifth time, Fennec can’t keep herself in check. She waits until Boba takes his helmet off, and _then_ she strikes. 

“Bet he’s sexy under there,” Fennec says casually as she’s powering down her cam droids.

Boba’s eyes go wide. Blood rushes to his face. “ _What_? Who?”

“You know who.” Fennec rolls her eyes. “That voice. It’s kindof a bedroom voice, you know? Not my thing, but I know it when I hear it. You think he puts it on, or it’s just how he actually talks?” 

Boba just shakes his head. “It seems rude to speculate. About the face.” At Fennec’s raised eyebrow, he adds, “I think he’s religious,” and gestures to his own face. 

“Weird how we keep running into him,” Fennec continues, as if Boba hasn’t said anything. “We don’t normally take this sort of job, huh?” 

“I wanted a change of pace,” Boba mutters. 

“Right,” Fennec says. “That’s why he always ends up with the higher-value targets when we end up on parallel jobs. And why you avoid taking anything that’d end up with us competing with him. For a _change of pace_.” 

Boba glares at her, shoves his helmet back on, and stalks away. 

* * *

So, okay, Fennec’s not proud of this. But she might have gotten a little _invested_ in this whole weird crush thing that Boba’s got going for the seemingly oblivious single dad of a small alien child. 

Look. Look. It’s _funny_. 

It starts with a little bit of footage from the sixth time they ran into each other, just after Fennec made her comment about the other Mando’s voice. 

In it, Boba stares, sightline pointed right at the Mandalorian’s retreating form, for a solid fifteen seconds. Then Fennec’s voice, off-camera, hisses, “Stop looking at his ass!” 

He fumbles with his gun and nearly drops it. _On camera_. Fennec cut the entire exchange out of the episode, obviously. But she rewatches it with sadistic glee later and files it away in a new, inconspicuous folder labeled d-roll. Dumbass roll, maybe? There’s absolutely no devious _intent_ here, not really.

But why would a self-respecting former assassin turn down blackmail material like this? 

She’s not actively _looking_ for these little moments. But they just start to naturally add up. It’s like Boba can’t help himself, really. Every time the other Mandalorian shows up, Boba manages to turn into a disastrous mess. 

On one such occasion, the tall shiny one — who _still_ won’t tell Fennec his name — ends up in close combat with a target, who’s armed with a vibroblade. The hunter does this absolutely bonkers block, just puts his gauntlets right up in the path of a blade, like he’s begging to get his hands chopped off. Most of his arms aren’t even protected! The joints are right there!

Fennec’s sure Boba’s about to move in to pull the other guy off him. Quick blaster pop, right, then the skip’s out? They can claim the bounty, and other Mando’s out of luck.

But Boba’s entire body stops moving — Fennec’s pretty sure he stops breathing — and he just. Freezes. 

Mando knocks the vibroblade out of the skip’s hands, steps back, and fibercords him. Boba shakes himself and steps in _then_ , trying to strike an impressive pose as he takes out the remaining two targets. Mando nods at him in thanks. But it’s too late — Fennec’s already caught him looking totally _useless_ on camera, just watching the other bounty hunter work. 

Not even staring at his ass this time — just dumbfounded by the guy’s basic competency.

Embarrassing. 

* * *

It gets worse when they start working together _mutually_ and on _purpose_. This whole “rivalry” thing is blatantly transparent. Just an excuse for Boba to flirt endlessly and tackle the guy instead of dealing with his emotions. 

But, hey. She gets it all on camera. And it's great material. Like the time they somehow end up _wrestling_ on the _ground_ while a tied-up bounty stares on.

The poor imperial actually says “stop flirting and kill me, please, I don’t want to see any more of this” with an air of overblown despair. Then they come to their senses, spring apart like “who, me? Flirting?!” and finish the job.

And then there’s the _carrying things_. At first, it’s not _that_ obvious, because Boba tends to shoulder a lot of the work himself when it’s just him and Fennec, anyway. But then it becomes _super_ obvious when she goes back over the footage. For instance: the three of them are surveying a blood-spattered room, hands on their hips. 

Two of the blaster-blasted corpses have to be returned to a client as proof of completion. The tall Mando sighs, shoulders slumping like he’s dreading lugging a leaking body. He reaches down to pick one up.

And Boba goes, “Nah, I got it,” _swats his hand_ , and proceeds to sling not one, but _two_ entire corpses over his shoulder.

Mando shrugs and starts walking back to _Slave I_. Boba trails behind, trying valiantly not to look like he’s wilting under the weight. 

“You want some help there, bud?” Fennec asks. 

Boba looks up ahead at Mando’s retreating form, repositions a sagging corpse, grunts, and grits again, “I got it.” He keeps trudging. 

Fennec’s pretty sure he’s about to fall over. She’s also pretty sure that other Mando is not paying attention to any of this. She follows behind Boba the entire way, just to capture the slow trek on camera. 

Now that she’s wise to it, she keeps an eye out, and there it is: Boba tries to carry _everything_. Bags, gear, bodies. Whatever he can get his hands on. And Mando just lets him, no questions asked. 

Another time, they’re gearing up for what’s sure to be a big, bloody catastrophe (for everyone on the other end of their guns, that is). 

Mando’s done oiling his armor, and he’s started evaluating his weaponry. He makes a frustrated noise. 

“What’s up?” Boba asks, without looking up from his own projects.

“Blaster overheated last solo hunt,” Mando admits. “I still can’t figure out what caused it.” 

Boba doesn’t respond verbally — just walks over to _Slave I_ ’s weapon rack and pulls out an EE-4 carbine rifle. The one he used for close to a decade, on his old HoloNet show. He spent years keeping it maintained to pitch-perfect specs. Modified it himself. Could probably sell it for a years-worth of bounties, in the right collectors’ circles. That gun has killed some _famous_ people.

“Here,” Boba says, “use this,” and puts it in Mando’s hands as if it’s nothing.

Fennec almost gasps aloud.

Mando turns the blaster over, hefts its weight in his hands, checks the safety. 

“Nice gun,” he says, still examining the parts. “You’ve kept it well. Looks decades younger than it is.”

Boba fucking _preens_.

“Hey boss,” Fennec interrupts, “can I borrow this?” She hefts a much-less impressive, but still valuable, rifle.

“No,” Boba says shortly. And he turns back to cleaning his blaster.

Oh, _she_ sees how it is. The cam droid's red recording light blinks at her, and she has to stop herself from winking at it.

* * *

She starts catching quieter moments, too. Boba’s quiet offer to clean Mando’s weapons. Another “hey, I know how to fix that,” after an equipment malfunction. Boba actually agreeing to let the other man _work on his ship_ when something goes wrong during a transport mission. These, she wouldn’t dare keep; she just quietly deletes. Some things aren’t meant for public consumption. _Even_ for her own advantage.

On another mission, Mando gets captured, despite their best efforts. It’s just for a few minutes, really — not even a serious hostage situation. But Fennec and Boba burst through space station doors to find someone with their hands at the edge of Mando’s helmet, feeling for the seal.

Boba roars in fury. The skip dies brutally. No one gets a payout that day, because they were supposed to take the Neimoidian in alive for the New Republic, and instead he’s smeared across the floor.

After, Boba kneels in front of the Mando, places hands on his pauldrons. Fennec can hear his voice shake through the vocoder. 

“You okay?” 

Their voices drop to whispers, and their helmets lean perilously close to clinking against each other. She looks away. 

Fennec deletes that one too, with a shiver of fear. _She_ has no plans to fuck with Mando, that’s for sure. Needle Boba? Absolutely. But man. She has no plans to die in tiny pieces, that’s for sure.

The two of them start going on... _off-camera_ hunts together, which is wildly weird. She doesn't ask. Just means she gets extra time off, which is nice. But not long after that, something else seems to change between them. The shiny one starts doing this thing after every hunt. It starts with hip-bumps, little jostles. Then it escalates to a head clink thing. It looks like they’re _kissing_? At least on camera, from most angles. Are they kissing? Boba seems to take it in stride. And she would’ve thought he’d be more flustered about it happening on camera, if there’s any real meaning to it. Though, maybe _he_ doesn’t even know the significance. For all his beskar, Boba doesn’t actually seem to know that much about the culture. 

Whatever. Not her problem. 

* * *

After a few months of this, all things told, Fennec has _hours_ of footage. And due to all this — _collaborating_ , with three-way splits instead of two, her cuts on the jobs have been dwindling. They get paid well, in general, but the bulk of her wages come from the Kaf-fi tips. And those depend heavily on how much fun Boba and Mando have for the cameras on any given night. 

So she decides to be a bit opportunistic. The bounty hunters _have_ gathered quite a fandom with their antics, of course. Boba never deals with the fan side of things — that’s what she collects a check for, editing and social media management. So he’s missed all the speculation (which, all things considered, is probably for the best).Some people even suspect that they’ve been fucking behind the scenes this whole time. 

Fennec doesn’t think so, though. They’re both _far_ too oblivious. And she’s not really sure how interested the shiny one is — it’s so hard to tell. If they are doing something, it's recent, probably new with the helmet clinks. She'd put money on it. (There's an actual betting pool, but she's restraining herself. How would she prove anything?)

She _does_ want to press her luck, though. Lots of people have told her it’s her biggest flaw, right before she’s killed them. And she _knows_ they’d make a killing in tips if she added some “bonus materials” to the official channel. She pitches the idea to Boba, with no specifics. 

“Just some b-roll I’ve been collecting,” she says, schooling her voice to disinterest. 

“Sure, sure, go for it,” Boba waves, barely paying attention. 

After she’s through editing the hours down into a nice little supercut — four minutes, upbeat music, tasteful sound effects — she hits upload. Once it’s on the HoloNet, it’s there forever. Not even Boba Fett has the underworld contacts necessary to scrub something _completely_. 

“Hey boss,” she says, catching him with his helmet off so she can see the full force of his response, “what do you think of this? I haven’t put it online yet.” A lie, but he won’t check, so it won’t matter. 

She hits play. As he watches, his face turns red and passes through five stages. Of what, she’s not sure. Grief? Mortification? Murder? 

“No one can see this,” Boba grits finally. “ _Ever_.”

“Oh, huh,” Fennec says, widening her eyes with false innocence, “why? You don’t like it?” 

“No reason,” Boba says, “nevermind. Just get rid of it,” and literally runs away.

Fennec smiles as the video viewer count crests one million.

**Author's Note:**

> For those unfamiliar with photography, "double exposure" refers to exposing a second image on top of the first, usually to make a new combined image. 
> 
> Thanks so much for reading! [Catch me on tumblr.](neverfeedthesarcophagi.tumblr.com)


End file.
